Companies typically generate a large amount of information, for example, related to marketing. Historically, companies have developed hard-copy binders of work information, with specific guidelines and information, and descriptions of responsibilities for individual workers. These hard-copy binders are cumbersome to update and to distribute. In addition, the information is presented in one or more volumes without regard to the context of a user's specific work tasks at a particular point of time. As a result, users typically underutilize these materials.
Of course, this information may be organized in an electronic database. This database may constitute a large corpus of knowledge and templated work processes organized, for example, in a hierarchical manner. Such data may reside in a corporate intranet or knowledge management system. However, such a database is typically cumbersome to maintain and utilize, has many limitations, and typically produces limited adoption for the intended user base. For example, a user must perform a sufficiently specific query to generate results relevant to his work to be of use. A more useful system would be one that automatically generates results based on a user's working context so that the user need not generate queries or rely on a set of one-size-fits-all queries.
There are technologies available to personalize a web site visit according to the needs and interests of a known or anonymous website visitor. These technologies may be used for corporate portals to present a customized and personalized view into a set of corporate data sources or for tailored and customized delivery of relevant documents to a user's computing device. However, none of these approaches is focused on the automatic delivery of contextually relevant work information, supporting the completion and execution of specific work projects, tasks, and sub-tasks, drawing upon a large corpus of hierarchically organized knowledge and templated work processes.
Therefore, a method to automatically assemble workbooks “on the fly”, in real-time, electronically, across an enterprise, and to present job-related information, in context, when a user is executing a task and needs access to specific work information would be useful. Such an approach would accelerate the user's access to work information to support completion of work tasks in a unique and powerful manner. Additionally, such an approach would also allow for centralizing and distributing knowledge for an extended enterprise workforce that is subject to high levels of attrition, turnover, dispersion, and reorganization.